40 Fun Facts About Chateau De Chenonceau

Thomas Bohier built Chenonceau in the 1510s on the stone foundations of which older riverside building?

An old mill left behind the massive stone piers the château stands on, and the kitchens are fitted inside them. Bohier's wife, Katherine Briçonnet, oversaw the building work.

The Menier family, owners of the Château de Chenonceau since 1913, built their fortune making which product?

Chocolate paid for the purchase, but Henri Menier died only months after buying the château. It passed to his brother Gaston, and the family still owns it.

Catherine de' Medici's 1560 party at Chenonceau is said to have given France its first display of which spectacle?

Fireworks marked her son's accession to the throne. As regent, Catherine spent a fortune on spectacular night-time parties at the château.

Widowed at Chenonceau in 1589, Louise of Lorraine wore which mourning color of French queens for life?

White was the traditional mourning color of French queens, so Louise became known as the White Queen. Her bedroom walls at the château, by contrast, were covered in black.

The Château de Chenonceau strides across which river, a Loire tributary that also gives its name to a French department?

The Cher flows right under the château's arches, so the building doubles as a bridge. A flood on the river in 1940 ravaged the gardens.

During World War I, Gaston Menier paid to turn the long gallery of Chenonceau into what?

A military hospital ran in the gallery for the whole war and treated more than 2,000 wounded soldiers. Menier's son and daughter-in-law managed it, with her as head nurse.

After Henry II died, Catherine de' Medici made Diane de Poitiers swap Chenonceau for which other Loire Valley château?

Chaumont was the less attractive château, and Diane lived there only a short while. It was still a far gentler fate than most discarded royal mistresses met.

Which Enlightenment philosopher was Louise Dupin's secretary at the Château de Chenonceau and tutored her son there?

Rousseau looked back on the job fondly in his Confessions, recalling music, home-staged comedies and a poem he wrote about a path in the park.

Diane de Poitiers lost Chenonceau after Henry II died of a wound suffered in which sport?

Jousting killed the king in 1559, when a splinter of his opponent's lance pierced his eye while he wore Diane's colors. His widow took the château back at once.

Which fashion house staged its 2020 Métiers d'Art show at Chenonceau with Kristen Stewart as sole guest?

Chanel found a happy coincidence there: Catherine de' Medici's emblem of interlocking Cs is carved all over the château. A crew of more than 300 worked the show for an audience of one.

The Château de Chenonceau is nicknamed after which group, who built, enlarged and saved the house over four centuries?

Ladies shaped it at every turn: the Château des Dames was built under Katherine Briçonnet, extended by Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de' Medici, and protected in the Revolution by Louise Dupin.

In World War II, Chenonceau's gallery straddled which boundary, offering a way out of occupied France?

The demarcation line ran along the river, so the main entrance stood in the occupied zone while the gallery's far door opened into the free zone. The Menier family helped people slip across.

Louise Dupin is said to have cut which final letter from Chenonceau's name, still kept by its village?

X still ends the village's name. The story goes that she cut it during the Revolution to distance the château from its royal past, though no official record backs the tale.

During the French Revolution, Louise Dupin protected the chapel of the Château de Chenonceau by turning it into what?

A firewood store no longer looked like a place of worship, so the chapel escaped the destruction of religious buildings. The château itself was spared as the only bridge across the river for many leagues.

Which architect, who also worked on the Tuileries Palace, designed Diane de Poitiers's arched bridge at Chenonceau?

Philibert de l'Orme drew the five-arched bridge for Diane in the 1550s, and his brother directed the building work. Catherine de' Medici later topped it with a two-story gallery.

Catherine de' Medici's long gallery over the river at Chenonceau was opened in 1577 to serve as what?

A ballroom 60 meters long, it opened with festivities thrown by Catherine and her son Henry III. Its 18 windows look directly down on the water.

The Italian maze Catherine de' Medici wanted for Chenonceau is planted with 2,000 of which evergreen?

Yew forms the whole maze, which covers more than a hectare of the park. A raised gazebo at the center gives a view over everyone still lost inside.

Which king, honored by a red drawing room at the Château de Chenonceau, was the last ancien-régime monarch to visit?

Louis XIV came in 1650, aged eleven, and much later sent the château's owner, the Duke of Vendôme, his portrait. His family otherwise valued Chenonceau mostly for its hunting.

Which French king seized Chenonceau from Thomas Bohier's son in 1535 over debts owed to the Crown?

Francis I had twice been a guest there of Bohier's wife, who delighted in hosting the court. After his death, his son gave the château to Diane de Poitiers.

Katherine Briçonnet broke with fortress habit at Chenonceau by building which feature the Italian way?

A straight staircase was a novelty when French castles still used tight spirals, which were easier to defend. Briçonnet made such decisions herself while her husband was away at the Italian wars.

The Château de Chenonceau stands about 26 km east of which Loire city, where its builder Thomas Bohier was once mayor?

Tours elected Bohier mayor in 1497, years before he began the château. His body was brought back and buried in a church there after he died on campaign in Italy.

Which French novelist, born Aurore Dupin, descended from Claude Dupin, the financier who bought Chenonceau in 1733?

George Sand was the granddaughter of Dupin's son from his first marriage, which made Louise Dupin, the château's celebrated hostess, her step-great-grandmother.

Which French composer, then a teenage Conservatoire student, spent the summer of 1879 as resident pianist at Chenonceau?

Claude Debussy took the vacation job through his piano teacher, and at the château he quickly acquired a taste for luxury that stayed with him all his life.

Catherine de' Medici planted mulberry trees in the grounds of Chenonceau to raise which creatures?

Silkworms eat mulberry leaves, so the trees were a first step toward home-grown silk. Catherine also filled the grounds with waterfalls, menageries and aviaries.

Henry IV secured Chenonceau for which mistress by paying off debts left by Catherine de' Medici?

Gabrielle d'Estrées saw her son profit: the indebted owner, Louise of Lorraine, left the château to a young niece who was betrothed to Gabrielle's four-year-old son by the king.

The Château de Chenonceau keeps a workshop, unique in France, whose staff fill every room with what?

Fresh flowers are cut from the estate's own garden, which grows about a hundred varieties for the purpose. The bouquets in the rooms are renewed twice a week.

A 1944 bombing of the Château de Chenonceau destroyed which original feature of its chapel?

The stained glass was blown out when Allied bombs struck in 1944. The windows there today were made by the glass artist Max Ingrand in 1954.

Which queen, later beheaded in England, is among those honored by the Five Queens' Bedroom at Chenonceau?

Mary Stuart was Catherine de' Medici's daughter-in-law during her brief time as queen of France. The room honors Catherine's two daughters and three daughters-in-law, every one a queen.

The naturalist Buffon and playwright Marivaux attended which kind of gathering hosted by Louise Dupin at Chenonceau?

A literary salon made the château a meeting place of the Enlightenment, with the philosopher Condillac and the writer Fontenelle also on the guest list.

The Château de Chenonceau mixes late Gothic design with which newer architectural style?

Renaissance taste even reshaped the old medieval keep beside the house, which Bohier modernized with large mullioned windows and an ornate doorway.

The ceiling of widowed Louise of Lorraine's bedroom at Chenonceau is scattered with silver what?

Tears in silver decorate the original ceiling, alongside widows' cords, crowns of thorns and the Greek letter lambda, her initial, entwined with her husband's H.

For a famous party at the Château de Chenonceau in 1886, Marguerite Pelouze had which kind of boat brought to the river?

A gondola was shipped in for her celebrated Venetian fête, one of the lavish parties that helped drain her fortune and cost her the château.

José-Emilio Terry, the millionaire who acquired the Château de Chenonceau in 1891, came from which country?

Cuba supplied the château's most unexpected owner, who took it over after Marguerite Pelouze's ruin and sold it five years later to a relative, Francisco Terry.

A scandal involving the brother of Chenonceau owner Marguerite Pelouze forced which French president to resign in 1887?

Jules Grévy resigned after his son-in-law Daniel Wilson, Pelouze's brother, was found selling awards of the Legion of Honour from inside the presidential palace.

Henri Menier, buyer of the Château de Chenonceau in 1913, also owned which vast island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence?

Anticosti became his private domain in 1895, and he hoped to turn it into a self-supporting estate. He named its Vauréal Falls after the French town where he had a home.

In a 2019 drought, a dam was raised to keep water around the Château de Chenonceau because its arches rest on what?

Wooden piles hold up the arches, and they have to stay permanently submerged. When the river dropped fast, the authorities raised a nearby needle dam to keep the foundations covered.

Which room of Catherine de' Medici, lined with some 500 faience jars and pots, was recreated at Chenonceau in 2019?

Her apothecary was rebuilt on the very spot where the original stood, a job that took two cabinetmakers three years. It marked 500 years since Catherine's birth.

The avenue leading visitors to Chenonceau runs for almost a kilometer between rows of which tree?

Plane trees shade the grand approach, which ends at a pair of 18th-century sphinxes brought from another château that was broken up in the 19th century.

In the early 1600s the attic of Chenonceau held which kind of community, shut off by its own drawbridge?

A convent of Capuchin nuns lived under the roof while their permanent home was being built elsewhere. The little drawbridge inside the château kept outsiders away from the sisters.

Louise of Lorraine was at Chenonceau when she learned Henry III had been stabbed to death by whom?

A Dominican friar, Jacques Clément, reached the king by claiming to carry a secret message. The news plunged Louise into a depression that never lifted.